Eurythmy as Visible Singing

Schmidt Number: S-5622

On-line since: 30th November, 2014

Lecture 7:

Musical Physiology;
the Point of Departure;Intervals; Cadences

Dornach, 26.2.24

I have often stressed that eurythmy is drawn from
the nature of the human organization, from the possibilities of movement
prefigured in the human organism. The human organism on the one hand
contains the musical element, which in fact is built into it, and on
the other hand (as should be especially mentioned in connection with
tone eurythmy) it contains music translated into movement. It will doubtless
be obvious to you that the musical element is situated, so to speak,
in the human chest structure, above the chest. If we put the question:
‘How are we to find in the actual human organization the transition
from singing, and from the inner musical organization upon which the
human being is founded, to the “organism of movement” of
eurythmy?’ — then (as is immediately apparent) we must turn to
the limbs attached to the chest structure, which reveal themselves as
limbs of movement out of the chest organism. [42]

Now in regard to the whole
human organization, the hands and arms are the most wonderful human
‘organs’. And you need only exert your intuitive vision a little to
recognize that that which is latent in the human singing apparatus through
the palate, jaw, and so on appears as limbs. In a certain respect it
is like arms and hands which have become solidified and brought to rest.
Try the following: Bring your arms and hands into movement before you
by means of an interlocking of the fingers (folded hands), and now compare
this with what happens when the lower and upper jaws are interlocked,
as may be observed in the skeleton. If you take into account the muscles
stretched across this, you will easily begin to discern the process
of metamorphosis from a mobile state to a state of rest.

Now we see how that which
serves the musical element in singing is continued below. That which
is connected to voice production and to initiating the sound is actually
surrounded by the muscles and bones which end in the arms and hands.
And because movement depends upon making use of these muscles and bones,
it is consequently a question of learning to feel how the muscles and
bones have to be used in order to do eurythmy in the musical sense.

In voice production,
the singer seeks the point of departure for initiating the sound. Can
we too find a point of departure in eurythmy, where we make use of those
most expressive ‘organs’, the arms and hands?

The human being possesses
a singular ‘organ’ which may be said to form the anatomical, physiological
starting point between the chest and the arms. This is the collar-bone.
It is S-shaped — truly a most wonderful bone. At one end it is connected
with the human middle system, and at the other end (after making the
S-form) it goes out towards the periphery, towards directing the movements
of the arms and hands. Now I must ask you to consider the following.
Animals which make use of their fore-legs and their fore-paws for dexterous
climbing (the bat, for instance, or the monkey) have quite an ingeniously
formed collar-bone. Beasts of prey, animals such as cats or lions, which
do not exactly climb but make use of their fore-paws when tearing their
spoil to pieces, possess a less well-formed collar-bone, but they do
have one. The horse, which only makes use of its fore-legs for the purpose
of running, has developed no skill in their use, and their formation
permits no mobility in itself; the horse has no collar-bone. Now, it
is in the collar-bone that we may feel the starting point from which
tone eurythmy originates. It is located there. And when you become conscious
that a force goes out from your collar-bone with its muscles into the
arms and hands, then vitality will be brought into your tone eurythmy.
Then you have the point of departure. It really has to do with livingly
feeling your limbs so that they can be used for such movements as we
have done. Anyone who is unable to feel at a specific place will never
discover the right point of departure.

The most necessary preparation
for tone eurythmy, therefore, is a concentration of your consciousness
to the left and the right sides of the collar-bone. And when starting
to do tone eurythmy, with the first step, [42] transfer your consciousness
to the left and right of the collar-bone. Feel that all the subtle possibilities
of movement which you pour into your arms and hands really proceed from
your collar-bone, just as the voice proceeds from its starting point.
[43]

Then feel that you pour
this feeling, which you consciously stimulate in the collar-bone, first
into the socket of the upper arm. And feel too when you express the
keynote with the legs, with the step, the following:

Already while unfolding the arm, the force which causes the arm to be
unfolded goes to the keynote from up here, proceeding from the point
of departure of the arm. Feel as if the whole forearm (and indeed the
upper arm too) together with the hand and fingers were quite light,
as if they had no weight, as if they really were not there, as if you
were dealing with them quite usually. But here, at the point of departure,
feel a strong unfolding of force; then you have held fast the keynote
in the arm.

And now feel a raising
or turning of the upper arm, in connection with the movement I have
already shown for the second. Feel the second itself, by holding the
hand in a certain way so that the force enabling you to retain this
position of the hand starts in the upper arm. Then you have the right
unfolding of the second; then it really is a second.

The stream flowing out
from the collar-bone passes by way of the upper arm and on into the
forearm; and only then does the flowing into the forearm become the
third. And here something extremely remarkable makes its appearance.
In order to form the third, you unfold the movement as I described it
in the first lecture. For this, you need the forearm, both hands [probably
Austrian dialect for ‘arms’. Translator's note], and the right or left
hand [arm], depending on where you will form the third. When you allow
the feeling which you have already made use of in the upper arm to stream
on further, it will pass over the elbow and flow into the back part
of the forearm. This is possible. When you go by way of the elbow, you
come to the starting point for the third. Now you can ask yourself:
‘Can I also allow the feeling to stream hither (along the inside of
the arm towards the hand)?’ Here, if your feeling is sound, you will
say: ‘This is not possible. I can let the feeling stream forth up to
the back part of the hand. But if I try to let it flow down the inner
part of the arm, this is not possible. I have to imagine it as coming
towards me, from below upwards. I have to imagine to myself as though
I were laying hold somewhere with my hand, as though the feeling were
flowing over along this side.’ And so we have two possibilities. If
the beginning of the upper arm is here (see Fig. 18), the feeling streams
in this direction (downwards). We pass from the second to the third.
We can also unfold the feeling that comes towards us, and here we have
to think of it as flowing from the hand inwards (direction of the arrow).

Now, you see, isn't this
something wonderful! The human arm possesses one bone in the upper arm,
for [the interval of] the second, and it possesses two bones in the
forearm (radius and ulna) because there are two thirds. The bone at
the back of the forearm [ulna] presents the major third, and the inner
bone of the forearm [radius] the minor third. The way the scale is active
in the bones and muscles of the arm is simply marvellous. When you now
reach the place where the hand begins (where the small bones are) you
still feel exactly as if you were inside yourself.

It is only when coming
to the hand itself that you go out of yourself. The fourth is still
within. It is here at the place where the hand begins. Here you have
to feel the movement that gives you the fourth. The fifth is here on
the hand itself. Feel the sixth here in the base of the fingers [proximal
phalanges], and the seventh (as I showed you) you can produce in particular
with the ends of the fingers [distal phalanges]. You must send your
feeling into the ends of the fingers.

Fig. 18

You see, it is not a
mere figure of speech to say that eurythmy has been drawn out of the
organization of the human being. So strongly is this the case that you
can keep completely to the structure of the human form. There are the
two bones in the forearm for the major and minor thirds, and here too
you have to develop the feeling corresponding to a major key and a minor
key. The major key is felt in the feeling flowing downward, passing
by way of the elbow into the ulna and from there into the back of the
hand. [44] When you feel this stream as flowing down into the back of
the hand, the feeling is of the major mood.

When, however, you feel
a slight current of air or a feeling coming towards you, passing through
the palm of the hand and here at the lower arm into the inner bones,
then you have the feeling of the minor mood. If you acquire a sensitivity
for this transference of feeling in the human organism you will find
yourself becoming inwardly musical, for you yourself are really living
the scale.

Take some opportunity
of observing two people engaged in eurythmy, of whom one makes the movements
as if they were being carried out by an artificial, papier mache, mechanical
person, whereas the other really feels the origin in the collar-bone,
feels the keynote at the point of departure of the upper arm, the second
proceeding from here (upper arm), the third in the forearm, and further
out in the hand itself the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh. We have
to get out of ourselves in the hands. We are out of ourselves the most
at the ends of the fingers. It is here that the seventh arises. The
goal in eurythmy is not to invent worked-out movements, but rather to
draw out the possibilities of movement that are inherent in the human
form itself. This is where eurythmy differs from every other modern
attempt to develop an art of movement. In none of these attempts do
we find in what is practised the movements drawn out in this way from
the human being himself. For it is necessary, in the first place, to
know that the human arm with the human hand, from the point of departure
through the collar-bone, is precisely the scale itself.

If you look at a horse,
you will feel that it actually could not do eurythmy. A horse engaged
in eurythmy would be an appalling sight! A kitten would make a more
charming impression, and a little monkey better still. The eurythmy
of a little monkey might be quite pleasing. Why? Because the horse has
no collar-bone. A kitten has a collar-bone, even if less perfectly formed
than that of a monkey, which possesses the most perfect collar-bone
[of the three]. The eurythmic movements of an animal, if you could imagine
them, would be pleasing in proportion to the development of its collar-bone.

Everything arising from
the appendage of lungs, larynx, and so on, when metamorphosed and correspondingly
projected outwards, is represented in the conglomeration of collar-bone
(the shoulder blade serves as a completion) collar-bone, shoulder-blades,
upper arm, forearm, and the bones of the fingers.

Now when the first four
notes of the scale are played, or shown in eurythmy, you will undoubtedly
feel them as a progression. Play the scale up to the fourth: prime,
second, third, fourth; it is a progression. With the fifth you feel
that something is changing. And with the sixth and seventh you will
distinctly notice at the same time a spreading out; the whole scale
expands. Even this is reproduced in the hand. If you consider the simple
structure of the upper arm and the two bones of the forearm, you find
there the entire musical image of the first stages of the scale. When
the scale widens out (from the fourth onwards), everything is indeed
situated in the hand itself; and here there are twenty-seven bones designed
for inner mobility. Thus, when you ascend to the upper notes of the
scale, you can develop considerable powers of expression, especially
in the use of the hands.

You know, however, that
from the anatomical point of view there is much similarity between the
arm and the hand, and the leg and the foot even if such points of departure
are not present. And it is possible to transfer the movements (which
we have used to express the notes) to the legs and feet, harder though
they are to carry out, and necessarily remaining as an indication. When
you transfer the gestures for the notes to the legs and feet, the effect
will be less beautiful, but you have here a different means of expression
for the legs and feet from dancing, as we have already tried in the
most various ways in speech eurythmy and the like. Now you will easily
gather that in the case of legs and feet, the beginning of the thigh-bone,
the whole thigh-bone, corresponds to the keynote, when you flex the
muscles. When you try to produce a movement in which the lower part
of the leg hangs, to a certain extent, while strong movements are made
by the upper part of the leg, then you are in the sphere of the keynote
and the second. Passing over the lower part of the leg to the fibula
and tibia (shin-bone and splint-bone), you again find the major and
minor thirds — the major third in the tibia and the minor third in the
fibula. In this way the thirds may be expressed once again by means
of the leg. But essentially such movements will be differentiated very
strongly from those most expressive movements the human being is capable
of (the movements, that is to say, of the arms and hands), just as the
double-bass differs from the violin.

When, with two people,
a piece of music is so carried out that the notes down to the C two
octaves below middle C are strongly articulated with the arms, while
the bass notes beyond the C two octaves below middle C are correspondingly
expressed by the legs (either by the same or another person) you will
find this renders a remarkably expressive possibility.

Thus it is really possible
today that all the musical elements may be included in eurythmy. It
is, of course, impossible to work out the actual exercises during these
lectures; you will, however, understand how matters lie, and in the
future it will be a question of thoroughly practising all the things
which I am putting before you. It is only through practising that you
really get into it. Then you will see that this is precisely the method
of tone eurythmy.

Now if a person wishes
to show the lower notes (the notes two octaves or more below middle
C) by emphasizing them as strongly as can be done with feet and legs,
at the same time only slightly indicating the same notes with the arms,
the effect will certainly be fine, too. This is one possibility.

Another possibility is
this. While carrying out the movements with feet and legs, the arms
may in a certain way retain confirming movements enveloping the whole
thing, varying according to the degree of liveliness in movement that
you wish to express (a) (see Fig. 19), or, when stronger and more lively,
a movement of this sort (b), or, when specially lively in mood, a movement
of this sort (c). You see, it is quite possible to say to yourself:
‘Yes, there are different possibilities of expressing the notes.’ For
this is the case. Eurythmy will never lead anyone into pedantry.

If you have thoroughly
practised the things we are here discussing, many different variations
and possibilities of expression will be revealed — but only if you base
your work on the realization that everything does actually depend upon
being conscious of the point of departure, of developing the consciousness:
seconds are in the upper arm, thirds are in the forearm. With your awareness
correspondingly transferred to the upper arm or forearm, you will create
aesthetically beautiful movements. Then your soul is brought into play.

Fig. 19

Just imagine one of you
carrying out the movements of eurythmy. Eurythmy is a singing through
movement; it is singing. It is not dancing; it is not mime; it is singing.
This is why you cannot sing and do eurythmy at the same time. Instrumental
music can be expressed in tone eurythmy, but not singing. Anyone who
imagines that this is possible has not yet grasped what eurythmy is.
He is not looking upon it as an autonomous art, but is making use of
it in order to illustrate what is being sung. In such a case eurythmy
would only be an art of illustration, and this, of course, is a complete
misunderstanding. A better understanding may perhaps be furthered by
mentioning something in this connection. Imagine that one person is
expressing in eurythmy something that another person is singing, both
exactly the same thing. Anyone possessing spiritual vision would see
in the etheric body of the singer precisely the same movements; it would
be as though a spirit were perched on the singer's shoulders, making
the very movements that are being made by the eurythmist. Singing is
nothing other than a carrying out with the etheric body of the same
movements resonating in the vocal organs, which you permit the physical
organism to perform in eurythmy. That is why it is difficult to bear
the sight of anyone doing eurythmy whilst singing to it at the same
time. For then you are aware of the same thing duplicated; you perceive
with the physical eyes, and then you see another, etheric being, with
his legs dangling on the shoulders doing these movements up there, doing
the very same thing! [45]

Should you ever have the
opportunity of examining a collar-bone (perhaps managing to acquire
some knowledge of the surrounding muscles, and especially studying the
direction they take) then you will notice something very remarkable
about this S-shaped collar-bone. The form of that part of the collar-bone
which tends outwards will give you the feeling that it is receiving
something, that it allows things from outside to approach it. In that
part which goes out from the middle you will feel an out-streaming tendency.
In the collar-bone (see diagram) you really have an out-streaming and
an in-streaming. The outward stream passes through the back part of
the arm, via the ulna, down into the back of the hand. The inward stream
passes through the palm of the hand, up the radius and back again here
[to the collar-bone]. Here two streams continually exist, the one flowing
upwards this way, and the other outwards (see arrow). The one gives
something out, the other is receptive. Following this, you arrive directly
at a real understanding of the major (Dur) and minor (Moll)
moods.

Fig. 20

The things that are said
about major and minor and which are found in books on music are actually
appalling. [46] Many such theories with regard to major and minor have
been put forward in recent times. If people, in such a case, did not
listen in a sounder way than they think, the fate of music would be
the same as the fate that would undoubtedly overtake the art of eating
if the numerous physiological theories had to be followed instead of
the instincts. It is a mercy that in music (and consequently in eurythmy)
we can, up to a point, follow the instincts; for the real secret of
the difference between major and minor lies in the fact that everything
of the nature of major streams out from the will, that is, a streaming
out from the fullness of the human being. Everything that is major is
related to action (Tat). Thus a certain activity must be introduced
into all motifs in the major mood. All phrases in the minor mood are
receptive. They possess something of recognition, of acceptance, of
laying hold of something. All phrases in the minor mood are related
to feeling. When passing over from a phrase in the major mood to a phrase
in the minor mood, we must definitely show that this is a transference
of activity from the outer structure of muscle and bone to the manipulation
of the inner structure of muscle and bone in the arm and hand of the
eurythmist. It is from feeling and experience of the impulse towards
action that all eurythmy has to proceed.

It is a fact that anything
based on the musical element may be expressed in tone eurythmy. To be
convinced of this, you need but to remind yourselves, for instance,
not only of how this or that occurs in the musical phrase, but also
in the musical element that which brings about a close for musical feeling
as such (where the progression of a phrase leads in a certain direction,
resulting in a feeling of being checked). In the cadence we have something
(the expression is somewhat crude, but I think it is applicable) which
dams up the flow of the music.

When you experience the
cadence and the whole progression towards the cadence, you will find
the following to be quite obvious. As an example, let us take the cadence
in the major mood (see Fig. 21).

How would you express
this in eurythmy? In the fashioning of your movement you have to bring
it to a conclusion, and you will certainly feel a tendency to lead the
movement over towards the right, stopping it.

This gives the effect
of a close. Thus a cadence in the major mood leads you to move in a
turning from left to right; the eurythmic movement is made in this way,
towards the right side.

Fig. 21

If, instead of this,
we have a cadence in the minor mood, the process is reversed; the stopping
movement would then proceed from right to left, for now the element
of feeling has to be present. It is only the ignorance of our civilization
which gives rise to the wish to teach children to write with both right
and left hands. This differentiation in the human organism is fundamental.
For there is a great difference, is there not, whether the heart is
situated on the right side or the left. (Cases are known in which the
heart lies on the right side, but they are exceedingly rare; in such
a case the person in question would differ from all his fellow-men.)
Now, this fundamental difference does indeed exist. It is based upon
the inner organization of the human being. And so, when approaching
a close it is necessary that you feel: cadence in the major mood (towards
the right side), cadence in the minor mood (towards the left side).
And when, in the progression of the music, at the moment when you reach
a close in the music itself (where you cannot imagine continuing), then
at this point you have to introduce something into your movement whereby
this movement is inwardly brought to a conclusion. You will feel the
necessity of expressing the cadence in eurythmy in just this way.

You see, in this course
of lectures it has been my full intention to direct your attention precisely
to those things relating to the inner feeling of the movement. For I
have been struck by the slight attention paid by eurythmists to that
aspect of the eurythmy figures designated as ‘character’. [47] I have
always emphasized that a real attempt has to be made to concentrate
the feeling and to stimulate a strong muscular tension at those parts
of the eurythmy figures where the ‘character’ is applied. This makes
quite a different impression upon the audience from that which is created
when (if you will pardon the expression) the matter is carried out phlegmatically
to the utmost. Eurythmy is fundamentally based on the possibility that
these things can be used.

Now, because speech eurythmy
is more bound up with the sense of the words, it will not be quite so
noticeable if feeling does not accompany the activity. But if the movements
of tone eurythmy are not permeated through and through with feeling
the whole thing becomes utterly meaningless. If your feelings are not
incorporated just as I have indicated today for the scale, the audience
will feel the movements as arbitrary and disjointed. Everything depends
upon your feeling: Here the upper arm begins, and you form the keynote
— or whether you feel: A humanly-felt impulse is situated here in the
upper arm, and you fashion the second in the way I told you yesterday.
These feelings determine whether the movements which you carry out for
any progression of notes appear filled with human motivation or whether
they appear unmotivated. For in everything artistic, nothing is as important
as motivation.

From this, however, you
see (and this is a point I would like to touch on at the end of this
lecture) that eurythmy has to develop gradually in such a way that auxiliary
subjects are studied, just as in other forms of art. [48] The painter
and sculptor are obliged to acquaint themselves with sculptors' and
painters' anatomy. They cannot get on without it. The eurythmist should
endeavour to acquire a thorough knowledge of the human being, and should
study such things as the physiology of the collar-bone, and so on, as
an auxiliary study (or whatever you'd like to call it).

When you now consider
this intimate connection between eurythmy and the whole organization
of the human being, it will no longer seem strange to you that in the
case of tone eurythmy too (although perhaps with occasional variations)
we are able to speak of a eurythmy therapy. Only think of all that lies
behind what I have discussed today! We have realized that there is both
an inner and outer organization in the formation of arms and hands (see
Fig. 22). They fit each other as does the nut to the nutshell; they
are built up out of the same forces. Consequently, if we have to treat
a diseased lung, it is possible to work back on this lung by encouraging
the patient to do tone eurythmy in a certain way, as eurythmy therapy.

Fig. 22

It is in afflictions of
the throat, however, that tone eurythmy can work with particularly far-reaching
results. For the whole muscular and bony structure of hand and arm is
in reality nothing but an outer, concave image of what exists in inner,
convex form in the lungs, and proceeding further, in the heart-organization
and in everything concerned with speaking and singing right out as far
as the lips.

And so, a really practical
awakening of the eurythmy that is within you, will enable you to gain
deep insight into the human organization; indeed, I would like to say,
the study of eurythmy may lead over into the esoteric realm if a practice
is made of transferring the inner impulse of feeling from collar-bone
to upper arm, radius, ulna, and so on, or correspondingly in the legs
and feet.

Tomorrow, then, at the
same time, we shall begin by adding what is still lacking, and in retrospect
complement our studies.